


these violent delights of love

by euphoricxdystopia



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M, Pining, Tour, Unrequited Love, Vomit, dan is so in love but what’s new, hanahaki, interactive introverts, mentions of the vday video, no one dies, world tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 09:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17241599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphoricxdystopia/pseuds/euphoricxdystopia
Summary: Dan is hopelessly in love, Phil’s seemingly oblivious and they’re on a world tour just to make things more chaotic.And yet, the Gods, or the Ruler of the Universe, or whoever the hell was in charge decided Dan needed to die in the end, too. Currently, leaning over the porcelain throne of shit and piss was the Gods' human voodoo doll, throwing up the contents of his unfortunate Indian dinner – and significantly more alarming than that: black tulips. Fucking flowers. This wasn’t real life.





	these violent delights of love

**Author's Note:**

> “and it was beautifully depressing like ‘a street car named desire’,” - panic! at the disco

Coming to the unfortunate realisation that Dan was in love with his best friend wasn't like the movies. There was no heart stopping moment where he looked at Phil and knew they were destined to ride out infinity together, or 1000 word love letters promising undying adoration as long as they lived, or the feeling of millions of tiny sparks lit alight when Phil spun him around the living room, and they danced to nothing together. 

  
For better or for worse, falling for Phil Lester wasn't like painfully unrealistic romantic comedies, sappy novels about teenagers with cancer, or smutty fanfics where they fuck on the floor after a heated Mario Kart session because it's  _ 'the only way to honour the moment' _ \- is what two shit-faced as fuck (and definitely straight) best bros do in celebration, after beating twelve year old nerds at 'the gayest course', rainbow road. Fan servicing teen's words, not his.   
  
There was none of that. In fact, he wasn't even aware he had fallen for his best friend until the vise in his chest became painful, or the blood in his checks was overwhelming, or his own fucking brain caused a 5AM panic attack with the thought of this person  _ not _ being in his life when he eventually found out about Dan’s true feelings. It wasn't romantic, nor humorous; and nor was Dan Howell an actor, playing out a fucked-up scenario in which a man realizes he's more afraid of his non-lover's death than his own. It was unbearable, far too real. Dan couldn't breathe for 40 minutes, as he choked on his own disgusting sobs and unrequited love. He thought he was going to die.    
  
It wasn't that dramatic at first, to be fair. The feelings that ignited a need to share his life with another, and live for one person entirely began with the smiles aimed at Dan - or  _ his _ smiles in general, or vaguely when showed his face in general, or just  _ existed _ in general...    
  
Perhaps that was pretty dramatic, but Dan’s life was dramatic. Not a movie with a bittersweet ending, or one with a moral, or the ones where everyone is absolutely-fucking-fine all the God-damn time. Just fucking dramatic –  _ insane _ . There was no hero or villain; only his mind and love for someone who would never love him back. He wasn't entirely sure he was even the main character if his life was its own motion picture. If anybody was the the core focus of anything, whether it be Dan’s metaphoric movie, or the universe, it was Phil. 

  
Dan Howell was a dramatic person; but the Gods, or the Ruler of the Universe, or whoever the hell was in charge decided Dan needed to die in the end, too. Currently, leaning over the porcelain throne of shit and piss was the Gods' human voodoo doll, throwing up the contents of his unfortunate Indian dinner – and significantly more alarming than that: black tulips. Fucking  _ flowers _ . This wasn’t real life.   
  
For about five minutes after heaving relentlessly into the bowl, Dan kind of just sat there on the floor, staring at the disgusting mess of puke in the toilet, disturbed by the black petals, the buds of the flowers. There weren't a lot, he counted, maybe, four petals in total. So reasonably, four wasn't a significantly high number – but then the logical side of his mind kicked in, and realised he was counting four fucking  _ flowers _ that he had somehow ingested and now have thrown up.    
  
"What the fuck?..." He whispered to himself, still staring at the black flowers like he could will them to go away because this was just some fevered hallucination caused by the shitty Indian take-away.    
  
He backed away from the bowl, flopping back onto his bum with his hands behind him, totally drained. He wasn't quite sure what to do at this point. No one had ever told him what to do if he started throwing up fucking plants. Hell, he was certain that this wasn't even one of the symptoms listed on WebMD to be internet diagnosable.    
  
This was all a nightmare.    
  
"Dan? You good?" A voice called through the thin hotel walls, and, God, did he feel like dissolving in it.    
  
"...Mmh." He mumbled to Phil instead of 'hold me', or 'I'm dying', or 'I'm in love with you'. He pushed the heel of his hands to his eyes, sighing at the relief that the voidness of this closed eyes offered him. He was sitting in a stuffy hotel bathroom's floor, nauseous and incredibly freaked out; but Phil's voice through the emptiness somehow made it a little more bearable. If he was touching him, kissing him, Dan could forget about the flowers entirely –   
  
He stopped the train of thought before it got too much, like how it normally did – and that ended with panic attacks, or days in bed, or falling asleep at 6AM – which he really didn't want to deal with right now.   
  
"I – I think I ate something bad." Understatement of the year, but it'll do. What the hell was he supposed to say?: ‘Phil, love of my life, I'm sicking up tulips and shit. Send the army.'    
  
"Are you gonna be okay for the show tonight?" Phil asked, cautiously – a little worried, but not for Dan's own sake, he knew.    
  
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Give me a minute." Dan replied, pushing himself off the floor, and leaning his elbows against the counter. When he stared into the mirror, it didn't feel like his reflection was staring back. His eyes were completely glazed over, like he'd been crying. Had he been crying? God, he looked sick.    
  
_ Fucking great.  _ __  
  
"The meet and greet is in 30 minutes. We're already supposed to be down there." Phil said, as Dan teared his head down, screwing his eyes shut.   
  
"Jesus, Phil, I  _ know _ . I'll be out in five, so stop worrying about it. It's not like they can start it without us." He was annoyed, evidence of it sept through his voice. Some of that frustration was aimed at Phil – for worrying about the time, or the fans who would be upset, or for having that stupid smile which made Dan feel like the sky was falling apart on top of him, and for sometimes sleeping completely naked but with miss-matched socks on, or for his voice that made Dan love his own name simply because of the way Phil said it –   
  
_ Not helping. _ __  
__  
"I know, it's not that. I – I'm wanting to make sure you're okay. This is the show being filmed." Phil said, awkwardly almost as if he was afraid of Dan's reaction. He was tiptoeing around Dan and Dan was not having any of this shit right now.   
  
"So you want it to go well," he scoffed, "and that helps without me looking like I'm going to puke on the crowd throughout the whole thing?" Even if he felt absolutely sick and traumatised over flowers during the entire show, he could cover it up with banter, jokes and piano playing. He bloody well knew how to pretend,  _ hell _ , he's been doing it since the start of the tour, since the move to London, since –  _ fuck _ – God knows when. He didn't need Phil to remind him how.    
  
Phil sighed, and Dan hated himself a little more. "No – well, yeah – that would be ideal if you didn't sick on the audience; but I want to know you are going to be alright to even  __ do the show – or meet and greet, I guess – in the first place." He staged it like a question, voice full of nervousness and uncertainty.    
  
Dan felt tired. He looked up at the mirror again. "I'm okay, don't worry about me." He ended up running his hands through his hair a thousand times to make it look less like a sweaty mess, and finally flushed the toilet of vomit and tulip petals, like both seized to exist.    
  
Phil was waiting for him outside, pacing awkwardly, unsure of what to do with his hands. "Sure you're fine?" He seemed a little relieved once Dan finally appeared from the bathroom. He knew he looked like shit, but Phil didn't seem to mind. In fact, he was smiling. Phil had many types of smiles – the one for the fans, the one for can't-breathe-laughing – but this one was just slightly curved at the edges, meeting his eyes where they contrasted his soft, pink lips with his icy, oceanic irises. This one just screamed 'love' without a word. It was the smile Phil gave Dan.

  
"Yeah, let's do this, Los Angeles.”

 

* * *

 

Eventually, the days just blurred together, and the time that Dan threw up flowers before a show was a thing that had escaped his memory, with all the rest of the American shows to perform. 

 

However, Dan at the Interactive Introverts after party for the North American leg of the tour, mixed with fancy ass champagne, pure vodka, and whatever drink just looked intoxicating because ‘ _ I have to get all my partying done in one night so it’s my quota for the rest of the yeeeear, Phiiiiww _ (“That not how it works, you dumbass!”), went as well as could be expected. Completely smashed off his face, and drowning in neglected love Dan Howell was a time-bomb from the start. If there was a God, they were laughing down at his pathetic soul.

 

“Fuck you, God!” Dan stuck both his middle fingers to the Vancouver sky, spinning around on his heals as if it would prove his point… well, ‘ _ what _ ’ his point was, no one knew. But sure as hell Dan had one. 

 

“Shut the fuck up!” Phil hissed, pulling Dan back from the pristine-looking, more-art-than-water-system fountain’s edge. “You’re gonna fall in, drown in a meter of water, and die of hypothermia, knowing drunk-you.”

 

“But I was talking to God?” Dan looked rather displeased at Phil for interrupting what was such a sacred moment. 

 

“You look like a lunatic.” Phil grabbed Dan by the arm, leading him back to where the Casino and too-high-class bar were. Maybe he could get his friend a glass of water or something so he didn’t have to listen to him yell at the sky. 

 

“But I’m  _ your _ lunatic, Phiw.” Dan pouted, and maybe it was Phil’s own drinks messing with his head, but Dan’s touch on his waist stayed a little longer than how friends were supposed to hold each other. 

 

“I know, sucks to be me that got stuck with you.” 

 

Dan’s swayed walking came to a halt, as the younger boy crossed his arms and hugged them around himself. “Fuck you. I don’t like you. 'Was trying to be sappy.” 

 

Phil rolled his eyes. “I’m shocked. Why is drunk Dan always so romantic, huh?”

 

Dan gasped, making an effort to cover his mouth with his hands. “I’m not! Well, only if I’m talking to you, coz you are you; you just are you, you know? So only you, not other people that aren't you, you know what I mean, don’t you?” 

 

“All I heard was ‘you’.”

 

“Exactly, you!”

 

Phil wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he just stood there for a half a second taking in the lively night of Vancouver city, and an endearingly sweet, and very drunk Dan Howell. 

 

Well, that was the sight before suddenly Dan leaned over, looking sickeningly at the pavement in front of him.

 

“No, no, no,  _ don’t _ .” Before he even had the chance to throw up on the ground, Phil was dragging him off to the nearest rubbish bin. 

 

Saldy this wasn’t Las Vegas, and someone throwing up of the side of the street in Vancouver at 1AM didn’t look as usual as it did in LA. He awkwardly rubbed Dan’s back as he heaved into the bin, ignoring all the starres of the other guests coming in and out of the Casino. C’mon, these guys had to be all alcoholic, snobby, gamblers – so they couldn’t judge, right? He really hoped they wouldn’t get charged with drunken disorderly for this, if that was a thing in Canada (knowing beautiful Canada, it probably was).

 

“Are you done?”

 

Dan wordlessly nodded, his head still bowed over the bin. “Tulips,” he said, and Phil decided it was a good idea to get Dan into bed. 

 

“C’mon, let’s go up to the rooms.” He lead Dan by his arm again, gentler than before. Though he was absolutely smashed, he was still Dan, and the guy had gone from shouting silly things in public at the top of his lungs and laughing hysterically, to silent and much more of a downer-drunk. 

 

Phil passed some of the others in the lobby, and they drunkenly bid him and Dan goodnight. It seemed Phil was the only one that had some self control, fucking idiots. 

 

They had separate rooms in this hotel, though just in case Dan choked on his own puke or something equally as bad as that, Phil lead him back to his. 

 

Dan flopped onto the bed, not bothering to get into the covers or change clothes before starting to fall asleep. Phil was a good-ass-fucking friend and took his shoes off for him, and tucked him in with the duvet. Maybe that was because he didn’t want Dan to be uncomfortable, or get cold, or have trouble sleeping tonight (even though he doubted that last part). 

 

He shuffled around and looked at Phil, who sat on the edge of his side of the bed, with hazy and glassy eyes. “I’m in –“

 

“What?” Phil turned to face him, moving that tiny little bit over. He was lying with Dan now, and the intoxication of the night was still running though his own veins, so he didn’t question it. Their noses were touching. 

 

“I’m in... “ Dan looked as if he said something wrong. His eyes searched for something. “I’m in –  _ trouble _ .” He decided, and buried half of his face in the sheets

 

Phil sighed, smiling contently. “Pretty sure you’re an adult Danny, but you’ll be in trouble from you future self tomorrow.”  

 

“Oh… Goodnight. Love, Dan.”

 

“...You don’t need to say that in verbal conversation.”

 

“Shhh…”

 

* * *

 

Dan woke up and noticed three things that weren't supposed to be there in contradictory to the unofficial  _ 'no homo, best bro rules’ _ he had made for himself over the years. 1) Do not sleep in a bed with Phil Lester. 2) Don’t get completely hammered around Phil Lester because God only knows what you could've said. And, 3) Don't think about Phil Lester, wake up hard, and  _ like it. _

 

His arm had somehow found itself around Phil’s waist, Dan’s face almost buried in his neck, his hair. He was practically  _ spooning _ Phil, and,  _ holy shit _ – did he break rule number 4: don't have cheeky friend, no strings, unattached, drunk sex with Phil Lester?!

 

That made the bugde in his pants so much worse.

 

Dan jumped from the bed as if he had been burned. The rush of panic was almost enough to smother the throbbing headache and bubbling nausea in his gut that he was suddenly made very aware about. 

 

Phil sluggishly moved to turn around to what was Dan’s side of the bed, sighing and pressing in face into Dan’s pillow – that would smell like Dan, and  _ feel _ like Dan, and fuck, does Phil know that it might as well be Dan’s body he’s be sleeping against?! Dan went white at the amazing mixture of a pounding hangover, the after feeling of sleeping with Phil, and the euphoria of growing more hard by just looking at his best friend like that. Both of them had so much room on each side of the king-sized bed, but  _ nooo _ , they just  _ had _ to cuddle up together right in the middle.

 

This ruins everything. He fucked it all up. Now, all he wanted to do was have those lips on his own, he wanted to collide, he wanted the adoration best friends didn’t have – and the thought that he might have had that last night but (even if it meant nothing to the love of this life), but couldn't remember any of it was unbearable. 

 

So maybe he jerked off in the shower, murmuring Phil's name three times accidentally. And maybe he cried when he vomited up last night’s sorrow, so sue him. He was drowning in unreturned love and it fucking hurt. 

 

The black petals in the bowl were mocking him. “What the fuck?” Dan groaned, bitterness in his voice. He pressed the flush button a little to forcefully than needed. “Goddammit!” 

 

“Hate yourself yet?” Came Phil’s voice from the doorway. He should’ve locked that, and he would've if he’d known Phil was awake.

 

Dan chose to sulk on the floor tiles. “Already did from the start…” 

 

“Hang on,” Phil walked over to their toiletry bag, rummaging through their few boxes of medications before handing Dan two paracetamol tablets. He went to fill a glass with water, but Dan swallowed them dry.

 

He watched Phil cross his arms over his chest and lean against the bench top. “What the hell were you even doing last night?” He asked, scoffing, but something laced his demeanor that felt softer than what he wanted Dan to see. 

 

“Wish I knew,” Dan rolled his eyes and looked at the mirror, not bringing himself to face Phil. 

 

_ More than anything, I wish I knew. _

 

“I mean, why were you drinking like it was freshers’ week? It was an after party for the end of this leg of the tour, not your eighteenth birthday.” Phil told him, and though he was smirking, it didn't feel very funny.

 

“Thanks, I’m aware, mum.” 

 

“Was it as cliché as stifling your unimaginable, emo pain with booze? 'Cause that sounds like a very  _ you _ thing to do.”

 

Dan wanted Phil to shut up as much as he wanted to just simply  _ go back to bed with him _ . “Something like that.”

 

“Okay, well… our plane’s at twelve, and I need the bathroom so can you…” 

 

He knew he shouldn't bring it up, and that if it truly  _ was _ what it was, Phil wouldn't want him to still  _ care _ , but he needed to know if he missed the one thing he was desperate for since he was eighteen. He couldn't live with knowing that they had their moment, and he missed it – but he couldn't live not knowing they had it in the first place. 

 

Dan’s face burned red as he forced the words out. “Um, wait… Phil, did we -- why were we --” he gestured aimlessly between himself and his friend, then back to the bed and wanted to flush himself down the toilet. 

 

Phil turned his head. “What? Oh.  _ Oh _ .” He looked as pale as Dan felt. “Oh, God no! Are you serious? Jesus, Dan, I like to think you know I’m above taking advantage of my friends when they're totally wasted.” 

 

Dan blinked at him, unable to decide how he felt and what his emotions were inside his mind. This was  _ good _ , right? He hadn't missed their moment… but, the word _ 'friends’ _ played in his head like a broken loop, and he reminded himself that they would never actually  _ have _ their moment. Dan just had his stupid, nine year old fantasies, and it was pathetic. 

 

“Oh, yeah.” He muttered, like he was two feet small. “Why were you in my bed?”

 

“I wasn't. I brought you back to my room. Didn't want you to die or something without me there to protect you from yourself.” Phil’s smile was sly. 

 

_ Cheeky fucker. _

 

He shrugged. “I'm not being responsible for you choking on your own sick in your sleep.”

 

“My knight in shining armor, Phil Lester.” Dan scoffed, and got up off the floor. Sitting there for this whole conversation was kind of disgusting. 

 

His stomach felt like a rock, but he didn't have the energy to throw up anymore. His throat was scratchy, and he felt like shit now more than ever. He coughed into his elbow a couple times to rid the feeling. 

 

“Order a ginger ale, or something.” Phil called out, shutting the door and letting the shower steam flow through the air. 

 

Dan let the black tulips fall to the ground.  
  


* * *

 

The internet was the first to know that Dan loved Phil, even before Dan knew himself. He didn’t get why he got so angry at the art, or the theories, or the comments – but it kind of dawned on him a while ago that he was jealous of these things that people were creating. Not because of the talent, or the the effort, or however many notes it got – but because it illustrated a fantasy world that he didn’t live in, one that he wanted to so desperately. 

 

So he bit back, he fueled the flame without knowing it. He’d tell them the truth about their relationship, and convince himself that’s all they’d ever be – and he was livid about it. 

 

He shut Phil out, just to see if it made a difference. He went away for days, tried to live on his own, made it out as if they were strangers; but like a magnet attracting to either pole, he was always pulled back home to Phil everytime. 

 

Phil told him he needed help, and the doctors told him he was depressed, and then Dan told himself he was fool in love. And then Phil had to go and wake him up some mornings, or run him baths, or cook him food, or hold him as he either cried himself to sleep – feeling like the world was crashing down – or when he didn’t feel anything at all,  _ wanting _ it to crash down. 

 

Now, it’s different. Now Phil reminds him to not stay up too late, or takes care of him when he’s drunk, or tells him to go to the doctors because he’s got a cough that just won’t go away. It’s 2018 now, but Dan knows the love is the same. Maybe that’s the problem. In fact, it’s always been the problem, because what they have together – it’s not enough for him. It used to be manageable, and now it’s suffocating. 

 

If his life was divided into chapters, the one where everything felt so lucid and unreal would be called Manchester. He had every possibility to love the person of his dreams the way he was made to, but he was too scared of falling asleep. He wasn’t sure who he was back then, he knew too much of what he would lose, but nothing at all of what could possibly happen if he told Phil Lester how he really felt.

 

It was cloudy and hazy and the whole year felt like a fever dream now more than it ever did but for some unknown reason, Dan was sobbing in front of his best friend, letting the world slip away through his fingers because he couldn’t hold onto reality any longer.

 

“I can’t do it anymore. School, the exam, the internet – I can’t… I don’t know what to do, Phil. Everything is so fucked up, and I can’t –… It just all needs to stop. I can’t fucking think!”

 

His life was a puzzle and he couldn’t put the pieces back together because he can’t find them again, let alone know if they fitted into place the way they did before. 

 

His words were overlapping each other, pouring out continuously – Dan wasn't even aware of the shakiness or the wetness or the heat at which his voice and face felt like. He wanted to run, hide, escape from whatever this sensation was that made his heart beat at maximum rate, and lungs feel as if they were going to explode.    
  
It was chaos, Dan knew. He was the chaos. He was the one who couldn’t handle the way his life was playing itself out, he was the one who let strangers tell him the way he felt, and now he was the one who couldn't keep his stupid thoughts inside his brain and keep them from affecting him like they were now – unable to think, to see, to breathe–...

  
And suddenly, Dan could...   
  
There were lips upon his lips, hands against his cheeks, closed eyelids in front of his own tearful, blown-wide ones.    
  
Dan didn't take in air – couldn't... but he could breathe again.   
  
Phil tasted like the colour blue – like the stars that Dan lived under every fucking night, but was still amazed by each constellation every time; like the cool serenity of summer becoming autumn and the sensation of the leaves changing into something so new; something so beautifully familiar, and completely unexplored... but it was perfect.   
  
There was flame in the atmosphere, in the apartment, among the grey clouds of rainy Manchester City where Dan didn't think anything livid could thrive – but it did. When Phil’s mouth left his own, it left a trail of heat behind, a flame that could never be burned out. Dan lived for that flame. There was a spark inside him that only Phil could ignite, and when he did, it was the most euphoric feeling he could have ever felt.    
  


Phil was the opposite of Dan’s bad days: he was the medicine, and Dan needed the other man like he needed air.

  
He needed that flame, that spark. He needed Phil–

 

Phil pulled back. His lips were left splotchy and red, chapstick that Dan couldn’t remember who was wearing before this was smeared between both their mouths.

 

“You kissed me?” Dan asked, floating within the clouds of Manchester.

 

Phil never said a word, though Dan reached for his hand. He edged their lips closer together again, and as they kissed for the second time, it felt nothing like the first. 

 

What once was fire was now frostbite, and God, there was something to seriously wrong. He felt wetness pool from their lips. It dropped down their chins, their necks and he was covered in the lively, putrid blood before either of them pulled away.

 

He couldn’t tell who was bleeding, the corners of his vision faded like a dark camera lens, and blurred over entirely.

 

“You killed me.” 

 

It sounded like neither Phil or himself at all had said that, though the words rang so loudly in Dan’s ears, he woke up. 

 

* * *

 

“Mmh, Dan?”

 

Dan was crying. “W-What?”

 

“Wha’s wrong?” Phil murmured and Dan stared for a minute, making sure even in the dark light of the aeroplane that there wasn’t any blood on Phil’s face. No, he was curled up, half lying his upper body across Dan’s seat, definitely exhausted and probably sleep deprived -- though he wasn’t bleeding. He was okay. 

 

Dan didn’t even think to check is own state. Not until the slick redness dropped onto his lap from his nose.

 

“Shit,” Dan sat up, trying to rustle around for a tissue in this extremely cramped space for two tall dudes. Half-asleep Phil wasn’t helping by leaning on Dan’s armrest. Something told Dan he’d been like that the whole night, hugging that pillow to his chest, and leaning on Dan to fall asleep. Even worse, Dan considered it normal -- or at least didn’t think to even move him. He  _ wanted  _ Phil like that.

 

His chest hurt. He was tired, and wanted to go back to a world where Phil slept against him as if it was routine, and no one questioned it; but tonight he had to deal with a bloody nose, the urge to throw up, and wanting to taste his best friend so he doesn’t have to taste the blood. 

 

“Phil, move for a sec.” He stood up, and watched as Phil grumbled something unintelligible under his breath as he went back to sleep in his own seat. 

 

Dan made it into the bathroom just in time to clean himself up, be sick, clean again, and cry.

 

* * *

 

“For fuck’s sake – go the doctor,  _ please _ .” Phil exasperatingly whined from the chair by the balcony. 

 

“Overseas? No thanks.” Dan grumbled because he was sick of stuffing black tulip leaves into his jacket pockets. The site of that many that had come out of his chest made his head feel weird, woozy almost. He wasn’t squeamish, but this was more than unsettling. The flowers were a constant appearance whenever he coughed, and he was hacking almost every hour. It had driven Phil crazy of the nineteen hour plane ride. 

 

Phil gave him that sort of look that snuffed out bullshit. “This is  _ Australia _ , not some unknown tribe in the middle of the Amazon that use virgin, tarantula blood and crap as remedies to cure people.” Phil seemed to be completely content with that analogy. 

 

Dan didn’t want to be thinking about tarantulas or any type of blood right now. He leaned against the doorway that led into the bathroom to keep his balance. “Ew. What the fuck was the sentence? No,  _ what the fuck _ were you watching on the way here?”

 

Phil deflated, sheepishly contemplating. “I don’t know… documentaries, I wanna say?...” he shook his head and eyed Dan. “Look, not the point!”

 

“Uuugh,” Dan moaned, flopping face-first onto his bed. He winced as something cut into his chest… like,  _ from the inside. _ It only lasted a couple seconds, he moved around and it seemed to stop the pressure inside his lungs, but it worried him nonetheless. He breathed in and out, just to see if he still could. Obviously, he still had the ability… so everything was probably fine, then?

 

“I’ll go with you, you big baby, if it makes you feel better.” Phil said, nudging Dan’s leg with his foot. 

 

Dan pouted, turning his face to Phil. “‘M not a baby.”

 

Phil sighed. “Stop sulking then, and go to the doctors! Let’s go before you die from asphyxiation on stage Sunday night.”

 

He rolled his eyes. This situation was way too dramatic than it needed to be. “Jesus, Phil, I don’t need to go to the doctors. I just need some cough drops or something from the pharmacy. Will that make you get off my back?”

 

Phil looked unsure, too worried _ , _ and it made Dan feel like he was living in 2012 again. “Dan, I’ve seen you take three cough drops on the way here, and then some paracetamol…” Phil said softly, as if he was reminding Dan because Dan himself had forgotten. “What if your pneumonia is back? You need antibiotics.”

 

Phil didn’t know a Goddamned thing.

 

“Shut up, I know it’s not that.” Dan scoffed bitterly, turning himself away from Phil – and there it was again. That… pressure inside his ribs. It was on the left side, though it scraped around to the middle, making his lungs seem tighter than what they were supposed to be. He couldn’t remember if he’d felt like this back in America, but he knew he had on the plane, throwing up in the tiny bathroom, thirteen hours into the sky. If Phil was worried about him having a cough, he didn’t need to know about him throwing up tulips, and things tightening his chest.

 

“Dan, it just feels like you’re hiding something serious…” Phil said carefully. “Or even if you’re not, you know this  _ could _ be something serious, so please just get it checked out.” 

 

This time it took longer for his chest to feel normal again. He couldn’t bite back a reply to Phil, as he didn’t want to talk or breathe to make it worse, but Dan silently nodded for Phil’s sake. 

 

“I’ll come with you?”

 

“No, I’ll take care of it.”

 

How he had any idea of explaining to a medical professional that he produced flowers from his lungs, he really didn’t know. He’s mainly just praying that they don’t deem him crazy and ship him straight back to England in a psych ward. 

 

* * *

 

It took him an hour to locate the hospital, being shit with directions (well, in foreign cities) and all. He took the wrong tram twice, but somehow made it outside the Royal Melbourne in one piece... or, well, hopefully.

 

He waits in the waiting room for a good thirty minutes filling out more travel insurance information than his actual symptoms, and curses himself for not being a better adult because he can’t remember any of the details about their insurance – Phil sorted all of that out for the both of them. 

 

He covers his mouth with his hand and the petals fall through his finger tips. Everyone in the room looks at him, though no alarm bells ring to alert the authorities that someone is making flowers grow in their own lungs. It’s just the normal, judgemental atmosphere of going to the doctors. This may as well be England, with all the familiarity, though he’s never felt so far away from home.

 

Someone calls his name, and suddenly he’s been guided into a smaller room with boxes of latex gloves, neon yellow waste bins, and a bed with that thin piece of paper covering it. 

 

Too clinical, and it scares him a little. 

 

“Hi, I’m Doctor Harrison. Just take a seat Mr. Howell.” She addresses him, though he hardly heard. Dan had been frozen in the doorway, afraid to step inside, or take a breathe because he felt the plants crawl up his throat. “So, what brings you here tonight?” 

 

Dan’s in the chair, facing the woman who has kind eyes like his mother, though a distant demeanour. Her hands are in her lap, body turned away from her computer and facing Dan. If she’s outright judging him for not being able to speak for thirty seconds and stuttering over his words, her face doesn’t show it. 

 

She’s clinical, and professional, and she’s going to fix what’s wrong with him.

 

“I – uh… I don’t know what’s happening to me.” He looks down because he feels like a child who wants a sense of security, and though her face is warm, it’s not what he truly needs right now. His body is aching to hold a hand, and dissolve into someone warmer – it hurts to realise who that someone is.

 

She nods carefully, looking down at the clipboard in front of her. “Okay, you wrote here that some of the symptoms you were experiencing were coughing, trouble breathing, chest tightness, vomiting... etcetera?” 

 

Dan nodded weakly. There was more she needed to know…

 

“Well, I’m going to start by looking at your lungs, if that’s okay.” So that what she did. She stuck a cold stethoscope under this shirt, and told him to breath in deeply, the release it. 

 

It worked for three breathes, but the plants inside his lungs dug into his insides, and dislodged tulip petals came up from his airways and across his lap as he sputtered. 

 

“...Sorry,” He muttered, though she didn’t say anything. She just looked at the black petals that were slightly covered in mucus and spit in Dan’s lap. 

 

Her face contorted, but not in disgust like Dan would’ve thought. As a Doctor, she must’ve seen some of the worst things that can happen to people, though seeing this, was more so intriguing, he guessed. 

 

“Tulips.” She settled. 

 

“Yeah,” He replied, wondering why he wasn’t the next TBC documentary yet, or why the hell she hadn’t called 999 or the army whatever. 

 

“Hanahaki.” She said simply, taking her stethoscope away from his heart and sitting back across from him in a trance like state. She carefully looked down at the petals on his body. Some were in his hands, trying to hide them. “May I see?” 

 

Dan wordless nodded, and she took a petal from his hand with her gloved ones. 

 

“To throw up flowers,” She studied the petal up close to her face and murmured to herself, like Dan wasn’t even in the room anymore. 

 

Dan’s heart pound so hard it was painful. Maybe it was just his lungs filling with plants. “What do you mean?”

 

“I-I’m sorry,” The whole facade she had before was gone, and Dan could read her like a book. She was worried, scared for him, and it was terrifying. She looked at him like he was going to die, if not of the flowers in his lungs, then the panic attack surely about to come on.

 

“I’ve only seen this once, years ago, before I was even a resident. Not a lot of cases here, if any at all... It’s called, ‘Hanahaki Byou’. It means, ‘to throw up flowers’, or ‘the one who spits flora’.”

 

Dan stared at her since he couldn’t do anything else. “Oh,”

 

Harrison peeled the gloves off and ran her hands through her hair, looking away. Now she’s the one who can’t look at him. “It’s a disease of the lungs. When a patient experiences one-sided love, flowers of significance grow inside their chest. It’s symbolic to something both beautiful and painful as unrequited love.”

 

Dan’s head swam, and the whole time it swam of Phil. “Am… am I going to die?”

 

She had the courage to face him at this point. If he was in her position, he knew he wouldn’t be able to. “No, not for certain. There are cures, and death is highly preventable for this disease.”

 

_ Okay, okay, that’s good, Dan. In and out. You’re not going to die. _

 

She still didn’t seem entirely alright with giving him that news. “There are only two known ways of curing Hanahaki patients, the first being returned love.”

 

“Returned?” Dan whispered, and the thought was too impossible to imagine, so he didn’t think about it. His life was a fucking twisted fairytale.

 

“Yes, if the love is requited by the person you’re in love with, the flowers will disappear.” She seemed hopeful with that statement, though something dark edged her voice. “Though, there is another option: surgery.” 

 

He closed his eyes, and fought away the image of blue eyes swirling in front of him; of bleeding chest wounds, of dirty silver scalpels, and life support machines. 

 

“We don’t have the equipment or the level of experienced doctors to perform it here, though there are Hanahaki specialists and experienced Hospitals in other parts of the world. Tokyo, for one, but there’s also a hospital in London, Mr Howell, if you choose to receive the surgery there.” 

 

He was going to be sick. “We… I don’t get back ‘till late September, though. Is – will I be okay until then?” 

 

She mulled it over in her head, the silence clinging to everything in the room. The air was so hot, he was going to pass out. He was going to die. “How long have you been coughing up these flowers?”

 

“...Since – before we left LA, so a few weeks?”

 

She looked the petals over in her hands. “These are quite developed flowers for only a few weeks. The disease progresses differently for everyone, though I strongly suggest, if you do choose to get the surgery, you get it at the soonest possibility. The risk of success is higher the earlier the patient receives it.”

 

He took a shaky breath, one that was rustled by tulips. He couldn’t fly back home early, not when they were so close to finishing the tour. He wasn’t going to leave Phil to do it alone, or not at all, even though Phil was the one doing this to him. He suddenly realised that Phil was the one who caused all of this, though Dan wasn’t resentful in the slightest. It was too much effort, and he just didn’t feel that way.

 

“I must warn you,” He wished she hadn’t have said that. “The surgery is effective more than 90% of the time, however you may not feel the same way about the person you love the way you did before you received it.” 

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The feelings you have for that person will go away.”

 

Somehow that was more impossible than anything else she had said that night. Not loving Phil was like not loving the stars. Phil was the northern lights in the night, and the sun during the day. People who were blinded towards their phenomenality missed out on everything. He didn’t want to become them, even if the light or the stars would never love him back. 

 

“...And if I don’t get the surgery or he doesn’t loves me back?” Dan knew, he didn’t know why he asked.

 

“I’m so sorry, Daniel. The branches in you lungs can block your airways, cause hemorrhaging, or a pneumothorax. If it’s not treated, the plants will most likely suffocate you. You will die if nothing is done.”

 

* * *

 

He saw no point in getting the tram back, so he just spend 30 bucks on a taxi to the hotel instead. He hadn’t gotten recognised once today, and really wanted to keep it that way. It wouldn’t look so good for there to be pictures of him online with red cheeks, watery eyes and snot running down his face. No one needed to know that he broke down in one of the hospitals bathroom stalls, trying to accept the fact that he’s going to die -- and then broke down again once he realised he had already chosen to die than forget the person killing him. 

 

“Why did you do this?” He had pled to a God he didn’t believe in, or Phil, or himself, because maybe this was what he deserved after nine years of making up sick fantasies in his head, where he could hold and touch and kiss his best friend; or what would happen in the dark, times where they didn’t have anyone but each other, and the only light Dan had was Phil and the afterglow. 

 

Clinging to desperation and something so much worse than need, Dan pulled his phone out to call Phil. He saw his best friend's name, the call button, the profile picture and contemplated everything. The photo was one that was too genuine and too perfect in Dan’s eyes to post and be tainted by the internet. He thought of ‘Sunday’ when he looked at it, though it was actually a Tuesday then he took it. Phil hadn’t know at the time, but Dan snapped the photo of Phil curled up in two blankets, shirtless and with a fancy champagne glass in his hand that actually held some berry, blackcurrant smoothie drink Dan had bought when he was in his ‘eating healthy’ phase. Something that felt like background noise was on the telly -- something really funny or cute or happy, because Phil was smiling like he was over the moon. It was the type of smile Dan made fun of, but really thought was the most beautiful smile Phil had. 

 

He took a watery, shaky breath, then opened up safari because looking at that, even at Phil’s number, felt wrong. He felt like telling Phil he needed to be saved when he knew he couldn’t be.

 

He made the mistake of googling ‘hanahaki byou’ and almost threw up at the graphic images of exposed lungs with roots and branches growing from them, of bloodied petals stuck to people’s mouths and the inside of their throats, and of flowers at gravestones because that was so fucking ironic, it was evil. 

 

Harrison had told him everything he needed to know, he  _ remembered  _ her telling him, though once he read over the information sites again and again, it felt as suffocating as the first time. 

 

_ ‘spit flowers’… ‘festering in the lungs’… ‘fatal if untreated’... ‘unrequited true love’... _

 

Dan wasn’t sure if it was his brain controlling his fingers anymore, but he pressed on a link that brought him to a page where victims talked to each other, spread their stories. 

 

_ ‘I loved this girl a few years back. Thing was, she had a boyfriend of three years, and I had an ex at the time that I’m not really sure why I was even with -- probably for a distaction, maybe, so I could convince myself I wasn’t actually in love with someone else (I’m a shitbag, was one even back then)... _

 

_...The flowers started a few months before I got the surgery. I remember they were white roses, the same flowers that grew outside her family home, the ones I would pick for her, and get yelled at by her father for doing, but she would loved them… _

 

_ I’m not really sure why I ever loved her. We were close, from what I remember. I found a box of poetry I’d written, a few of her belongings, and some polaroids of us (mainly just her)…  _

 

_ I’d completely forgotten about it, it had been abandoned in my wardrobe for ages, though today I found it again. The first thought I had was to throw it all out. Not because I was still in love, or that she caused me pain, but because… I just didn’t care. I had no feelings at all. I thought of the box as junk. I used to be so in love with this woman I thought my heart was going to give out, but now, I can’t remember her second name.”  _

 

Dan covered his mouth with his hand to smother the sob. The tears ran down his hand, and suddenly he couldn’t see the words in front of him. Not that he ever wanted to see them again, anyway. 

 

The thought of doing that and forgetting Phil, was more impossible than Phil actually loving him back. His whole life was with Phil, and it had been since he was seventeen -- before Phil knew he had existed. If he were to give Phil up, he would be giving his home away, his career… He would be giving his life with Phil away. Maybe it was just his post-panic attacked brain talking or possibly something more, but a life without Phil was worse than no life at all. 

 

In a bathroom stall, sitting on the closed toilet lid, Dan Howell realised how deeply and royally fucking in love he was with Phil Lester. 

 

Now, an hour later, he was numbly walking into the hotel lobby, forgetting about the key card, and the floor number, and which room was theirs because it all too insignificant. 

 

He didn’t know what to do, so Dan just stood outside the lift. It must’ve looked odd, a man waiting outside without ever pressing a button, or choosing to go inside once others made their way inside or out -- but his mind was drained and thinking was impossible. He still had his phone on him, but he didn’t know how to use it. Parts of him wondered if the tabs were still open, and the stories of suffering victims and flowers would just forever haunt him whenever he looked down to use his mobile. 

 

Shallow gasps ran in and out of his mouth, the back of his throat filling with fucking tulips, and he didn’t know how to breathe, now. He was just blindly waiting -- and for what? 

 

“Dan?” Someone called. He didn’t look up until they stepped right in front of him, grazing their hand against his arms. “Dan, what --”

 

That’s his name. That’s his name, he remembered now. 

 

_ And this person is _ \--

 

Cornelia. Martyn’s girlfriend. His friend. He didn’t know why he was forgetting everything. 

 

“Corn, hi.” He said softly, and perhaps his voice broke, he couldn’t tell anymore. The sounds around him were like white noise in his ears. The kind of static he used to listen to to fall asleep when his head felt like heavy, wet air, and his body was weighed down by his own fucking serotonin deficiency that made it seem like he was being buried under concrete. It was an unpleasant sound, like steel wool against broken glass, but it made him feel disgusted, or angry, or  _ something _ . 

 

Now, it felt like an explosion behind his eyes, and all he wanted to do was let it collide. Maybe he already had, and this was just the aftershock. 

 

“Hey…” She replied, her eyes scanning him for something amiss. She looked as if ‘the something wrong’ was all over him,  _ everywhere _ , like he was tainted in it. “Are you alright? You’re really pale. You don’t look good.”

 

“Mmh…” Was all he had the strength to reply with. “S’okay, I went to the doctor.”

 

She nodded. “Yeah, Phil told us. Is everything..?” 

 

He looked away, biting his trembling bottom lip, the branches inside his lungs pushing against the walls of his ribcage with each breathe. “Yeah,” He couldn’t look at her when he lied. “Got pneumonia again.”

 

Her grip on his arm got a little tighter. “Shit, are you okay? Do we need to cancel or postpone the shows? People will understand, your health is more impor--”

 

“No,” As long as he was still alive, he was going to finish the best thing he and Phil had ever done. He was going to finish it, him and Phil, even if it will be the last thing that he will ever do. He was going to get that much out of this fucked up situation. 

 

“But --”

 

“Doc gave me meds. Said it’s fine for me to perform.” Okay, so maybe he hadn’t even mentioned performing a world tour with the love of his life, and that he still had the rest of Australia, New Zealand and Asia to do shows in, but the doctor did give him medication to ‘moderate and minimise’ the effect of the disease (whatever that meant), so it wasn’t fully lying.

 

“Okay, well, if you say so.” She said gently, but her face still screamed concerned. Dan felt as if he was glass, like he would break apart at any moment, and she would forever see right through him. She probably already could. 

 

“C’mon, let’s get back up to the rooms.” She grasped his elbow lightly and led him into the elevator. She made it seem like he was incapable of walking, but then again, he did just spend however-many minutes standing outside the damn lift. Did she know that? Had she just walked into the lobby and found him staring at the doors like a maniac? Fuck, that will be embarrassing tomorrow.

 

But right he felt like floating through hot, sticky air and all he knew was that his head was fuzzy of static and Phil, and his lungs hurt.

 

* * *

 

Black tulips were rare, he discovered. It was a week after he went to the hospital, a week after Melbourne, and now their ten minutes away from meeting a roomful of people who have came to see the first show in Brisbane. He’s finally gotten the courage to look at his phone again without wanting to cry or throw it at the wall, so he tested the waters a bit, and decided to look up ‘tulip colour meanings’.

 

He never knew flowers spoke a language before, but apparent the different hues and species of plants can mean a lot of things. Red tulips: true love. Obviously. How cliche, he almost scoffs. It’s because they’re bright and new and vibrant and the colour of blood. Red tulips mean ‘love that was meant to be ’ and he never wants to see one again.

 

The list from some gardner’s website that was meant for 60-year-old retirees went on and on, and he felt the way people did then they researched the thing corrupting their cells, or corroding their nerves. 

 

White: purity, innocence, heaven. Basically, from what he read about them, they were the opposite to what he grew in his lungs. Opposite of him -- but, Phil however…

 

Dan himself didn’t believe in a heaven, but if there was one, it's made for Phil. Dan was going to rot in the ground, surrounded by weeds, and forever have a gravestone that’s flowerless. Phil however, in sixty years, will have a beautiful headstone, all his accomplishments engraved in the stone, and it will be decorated by these pure, heavenly-symbolic white tulips because he’s everything Dan’s not, and these flowers have made Dan come to realise that dying at 27 years old, is a good way of letting Phil free from his darkness, his bagage…  _ him _ .

 

Then there’s orange, which represented happiness, and it suddenly made sense to him why he had never once seen an orange tulip in his life. 

 

_ That’s pretty fucking dramatic, Dan.  _ The voice in his head sneered at him, like it was a different person. The thought was dramatic, and though it was true, it wasn’t the reason he was unhappy -- not that he  _ was  _ unhappy, in the first place. Truth be told, this has been the happiest he’s ever been. He was in love, and he was traveling the world, and he was young, and he was living like he was dying.

 

He was going to die, but he was going to die happy and on his own terms. This way, he didn’t have to fear it anymore… (or at least that was what he told himself.)

 

If it wouldn’t cause a global phandom shit-storm and get him put on suicide-watch, he would’ve tweeted about it.

 

When he scrolled down to the ones that were coloured agonisingly similar to what he saw in the toilet bowl thirty minutes ago, he had to hold in a shaking breath. He had one hand on the side of his ribcage, something that he had been doing a lot recently to easy the chest pain, and scrolled down a bit to read what he doesn’t want to know. 

 

Originally, ‘Queen of the Night’ tulips were brought as a sign of honour to a royalty’s grave. They meant power and strength, and because of their rarity, they were only meant for the most nobel of deceased Kings and Queens. Nowadays, they symbolised a goodbye of sorts. A farewell to someone who has died. 

 

So, either the universe thought he was going to Queens Elizabeth’s future funeral with a bouquet of royal flowers in his lungs to lay at her grave, or it was foreshadowing his ultimate demise in a stupid, mocking, poetic way.

 

“Is gardening your new phase now, Dan?” Phil snickered as Dan shrieked, peering up behind his shoulder. “Plants are my branding, not yours. Get in your lane.” 

 

Dan jumped to see Phil holding up his phone, laughing stupidly at the video he was now replaying of Dan getting jump-scared from behind him. 

 

“Fuck, Phil! Don’t do that shit! You better not post --”

 

The instagram notification popped up on his phone screen, and Dan gave Phil the dirtiest look he’d  ever seen. “You absolute fucking, cheeky twat.” 

 

Phil thought it was so funny, he posted it to twitter as well, not just his instagram story, and Dan yelled at him about cyber bullying the whole time in took for them to walk to the room where the meet and greet was. He carried on like he was deeply offended, but Phil knew the difference between actually-pissed-off-Dan and just-putting-up-an-act-for-the-bants-(because it  _ was  _ actually funny)-Dan. 

 

Dan replied to the tweet about not continuing with the brand of ‘Dan and Phil’ because he’d suffered a heart attack, though Phil replied with, “Eh, you’re one in a billion, Dan. I wouldn’t make it alone. I think I’ll keep you around for a while.” in real life. 

 

* * *

 

The sticky humid air of Brisbane’s coast was enough to tell that spring was certainly leaking into the atmosphere of the Southern hemisphere. 

 

He was starting to get used to it, by this point. They had quite a bit of time left over in Queensland before they had to travel to New Zealand and then back down to Sydney, so they were enjoying while it lasted. 

 

It wasn’t quite sunset yet, the sky was still a pristine crystal blue that matched the waves of the ocean, but for a moment in that picture-perfect scene, Dan almost forgot about everything. 

 

Phil was lying back on his hands, looking towards the horizon line with gloss coating his eyes and a scene of wonderment that he only ever embodied when they walked out of their comfort of a home and explored something totally uncharted. He looked the way did now when the two of them were amongst the crowded, roaring beach in Florida with fireworks dancing across the sky; or earlier this year, while exploring and losing themselves in the historical streets of Amsterdam, because losing themselves in a foreign city was always a dream on their bucket list. 

 

Dan was too entranced in a world to think rationally, logically; but if he blocked out the sounds of the wind picking up sand, of Martyn and Cornelia talking to themselves, and the random pop music playing on someone else's speaker, Dan could see his future. 

 

It was painted like a canvas in front of his eyes, with Phil sitting like that right in the middle: the main focal point, the centre artwork of Dan’s life.

 

They’d gotten a dog. It's name was something awesomely epic, like Zeus or whatever, because Phil believed the best dog in the world needed to have the best name. Though, he joked about it being something stupid for prosperity's sake and Dan had known he'd been joking, but act shocked and horrified for about two seconds, before they went with the cool as fuck name because that's what their dog deserved.   
  
They had a house. It was fairly close to the city because they still loved it there, but further away enough that they had a backyard, instead of dying houseplants that served as their current home's sad greenery.   
  
They had children. Somewhere, somehow, they found a way to make it possible, and they had lazy Sundays with their kid jumping on their bed to wake them up. Together the three of them made pancakes and the batter would've gone everywhere while he or she stirred it, but Dan kiss it off Phil's cheek, and they'd laugh as their kid squealed 'ewww!'. Dan would've taught them piano, if they wanted to learn someday, while Phil filmed every significant moment of their lives just for themselves. Their child shared the same amount of creativity as with his or her fathers. They inspired their child to be whatever he or she desired to be, and caught them whenever they fell down both physically and figuratively, and never pushed them to abide by the rules society had made up – because he or she was absolutely perfect the way they already were. And though it was terrifying, and new, and everything they hadn't done before, they were the best parents to have ever existed.

 

Dan saw his entire family -- not the one we was born into by chance and incident, but the one he made with unconditional devotion and with Phil. 

 

He saw everything he’d ever wanted since the beginning. 

 

The canvas was washed out with the sound of the waves hitting the shore, and Dan didn’t allow himself to think about what he had just envisioned. Instead, he wiped the impossible and  _ wrong  _ thought away, and took out his phone. He snapped a picture of the scene that was reality, and even so, the image was entirely Phil’s portrait. No dog, no children, no family, no devotion -- just the present. It should’ve hurt him, because he knows he’ll never have what he wants so desperately, but he can have this moment while it lasts.

 

It wasn’t selfish if the photograph wasn’t for him, he argued with the more logical, more rationalising side of his mind. If he were to post this for the internet, then it was for the fans. 

 

So that’s what he did.

 

He uploaded the image of something he’d never have so the whole world could see it, and that wasn’t wrong. The tulips in his chest disagreed. 

 

He hacked into his elbow a few times and brushed the sand over the petals to cover the evidence. 

 

“Are you okay? Do you wanna go back?” Phil suddenly snapped around in his direction, no longer captured in the serenic moment where time seemed to feel endless. 

 

Dan nodded, only speaking once he gained his breath back. “Of course I’m fine, you dingbat. You worry too much.” He teased with a tight smile. 

 

Phil didn’t look one bit convinced by it.

 

“Oh, c’mon. We aren’t going back just yet, we haven’t even been in the water!” Dan exclaimed, pouting like a difficult child. He whined so much, he might as well be one, as far as airport security and bartenders thought anyway. 

 

Phil looked doubtful, but a sly smile caught his lips and Dan knew everything would be okay, when it really wouldn’t be. But for now, with Phil smiling like that, it  _ had  _ to be. 

 

“Well, it  _ is  _ a beach crime to go to the beach and  _ not  _ play in the water…”

 

Dan was surprised that Phil was the one dragging him to his feet and that they were running together, hand in hand, on Brisbane’s Gold Coast towards the edge of the ocean like a cheesy couple on their wedding day. That fit them well, he decided.  

 

“Woah -- wait, wait!” Dan skidded to a hold, kicking up the sand and spraying it out towards the waves of white water. “It may be spring here, but it’s still gonna be cold as fuck.”

 

Phil rolled his eyes, half looking at Dan like he was saying ‘ _ this was your idea, mate’ _ , and half looking at him with that evil grin, and Dan knew he should be very, very afraid. 

 

“Come here, Danny…” Phil dragged out in a mischievous undertone that made Dan beam so hard, his dimples were wider than he’d ever noticed them being, and his face hurt from smiling. 

 

“Nuh-uh!” Dan dodged as Phil made an attempt to grab his arms and pull him into the water. 

 

The waves washed over their feet, but somehow, neither of them seemed to notice, neither of them cared to remember what they were fighting against anymore. It was like a dance, uncoordinated and crazy, but entirely  _ them  _ so they kept chasing each other back and forth, kicking up the waves and letting their laughs carry out into the ocean. 

 

Neither of them had words for these types of moments, as they didn’t really needed any anway. The waves still rolled over their feet, and their heartbeats still slammed inside their bodies from the exercise and something more, but when they found each other’s gaze, words and time and everything else in the world suddenly became pointless. 

 

He felt invincible, unstoppable.

 

Dan couldn’t stop himself. Phil and him were the only people to exist, the canvas was still painted forever in his mind, and his eyes were three fucking different colours, but beyond that: Dan saw the emotion he himself was feeling. 

 

“I’m -” 

 

Too late they realised that their feet had sucken in the sand, and they were too deep in the water to keep upright. “Dan!” Phil went to grab Dan to stop him from toppling over, though he himself was already sinking, and together they collided into the cold, white waves. 

 

They had fallen, more than they realised.

 

Phil had his chest pressed against Dan’s, both fully soaked t-shirts sticking to their skin, and his hands had somehow found themselves at Dan’s torso and waist. 

 

“Oh,” was all Phil could say, and before they could question the moment, they exploded into loud, hyena-like laughter, perhaps ruining a reckless moment Dan thought he could’ve had, or perhaps making a perfect moment he was glad to have made before it was too late. 

 

He was still on the sand covered by the ocean, and Phil was still on top of him clinging to his sides, but he wanted to relive his moment again. He wanted to chase Phil like they were stupid teens in love, and he wanted to fall with Phil again the way people fall in cheesy movies. Creating a canvas in his mind is no longer enough, he wanted to touch the paint, to live in it. The wants to glide his fingers though the messy oil paints and smeer all the colours together. That’s what this moment felt like.

 

The flowers threatened him in his throat, silently telling him he couldn’t ever think about those things if he wanted to die happy. 

 

He choked on them anyway, and Phil had never moved from him so fast. He pulled him into a sitting position, hand on Dan’s back.

 

The pain was worse when Phil was around, and the branches he knew were in there poked his ribs, scrapped his insides, and normally the pain comes and goes with each breath, but this was consistent -- he couldn’t get rid of it.  

 

Dan sputtered into the sea water, choking up all kinds of mucus, tulips and blood. Fucking  _ blood _ . If he saw that, so could Phil.

 

“Oh, my God! Dan, you’re --” Phil’s eyes were wide like he just witnessed something terrible. 

 

“S’fine..” Dan dismissed and pushed himself up against every nerve in his body telling him not to and to just keep lying in the cold, salty water.

 

“That was blood!” Phil exclaimed. Dan had known Phil for so long, he could see that he was terrified.

 

“Trust me, it wasn’t. I’m fine.” Dan offered the tinest smile for his best friend’s sake, and pressed a hand to his left side and prayed it didn’t look too obvious as relieving the pain. He sighed as it eased the pressure.

 

“I could have sworn --”

 

“Phil, don’t worry about it. I’m totally okay.”  Dan lied through his teeth, and instantly felt bad about it, but that could’ve equally been the raging branch gutting into him. Hard to tell, and he was suddenly too tired to care.

 

Maybe Phil caught on to him that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, maybe not -- but they left soon after. Martyn talked to Phil about something Phil really didn’t want to listen to by the look on his face, but Dan just pressed his head against the window of the taxi, jutted his fingers into his left side long enough to move the branch so it aligned with his lungs, rather than against it. Cornelia had some weird emotion that etched her brows together, but didn’t say anything. 

 

* * *

 

Phil had been acting off all day. The show banter was too forced, too rehearsed, and off stage their communication was even worse. 

 

“What the hell is wrong this you?” Dan veered as he downed a bottle of water someone had passed him. The post-show adrenaline rush was more of an anxious panic tonight, and the whole thing -- Phil’s face, his demeanor, the way he acted with not only Dan but his brother, the crew,  _ everyone  _ \-- was unsettling. 

 

“I could ask you the same thing.” Phil shot back at him, eyes tired and dull, but peering into him like he had done the worst thing imaginable. They walked on edge to their dressing room together, thankfully people too absorbed in packing up the set and what-not to worry about them after they’d done their roles of handing the two performers towels and water bottles.

 

Dan entered the room first, jumping at the sound of Phil slamming the heavy door behind him. Phil glared, and Dan felt as if the spotlight was still on him, and everyone’s eyes where still focused on his every move. It was just his best friend, but it seemed like he was facing everything. He tried to convince himself he wasn't. 

 

“You are barely standing upright.” He stated accusingly, like it was a crime -- and sure, Dan couldn’t see clearly for moments of the show, he had coughed a few times and covered it up as clearing his throat, and he was currently leaning against the vanity to stay upright -- but people were allowed to be tired, weren’t they? 

 

(There was the possibility that his exhaustion and pain were the result of something more fatal, but he refused to accept that. He couldn’t.)

 

“I’ve just performed a two hour stage show, one that I’ve been performing since May. Forgive me if I’m a little worn out.” He spat, and he told himself that the hurt take-back Phil did didn’t bother him one bit, didn’t hurt him at all. 

 

“So have I, if you haven’t noticed. But I’m not the one currently unable to stand without wobbling, or wheeze and cough during the show, or wince and clutch my side whenever I breathe!” Phil’s outsburt had Dan recoiling hard enough to bump into the mirror, and he saw panic flash through Phil’s entire face like it had been for most of the night.

 

“For fucks sake, Phil.” Dan muttered like Phil was insane for bringing attention to this. The reason he wasn’t yelling (and this wasn’t turning into a one-on-one screaming match) was  _ certainly  _ because he didn’t want the others to hear, he told himself. It definitely wasn’t because of the strain it caused on his lungs, and made them swell and constricted to a suffocating level. His throat didn’t close up, the pain was totally manageable, and he was able to keep the flowers inside. That’s what he repeated in his mind, over and over again like a prayer he’d repeatedly recited in Sunday school.

 

“Are you serious?” Phil scoffed, running his hands through his sweaty, disheveled post-show hair and didn’t take his eyes of Dan the entire time. “I had fucking paramedics off stage, because you looked half-dead the moment we walked out!”

 

Dan hadn’t noticed them. Either that said something about his visual awareness, or his eyes going in and out of focus was a real problem. ”Are you serious? You wasted their time.” Was all he could say. It’s not like they can do anything for him anyway. “I was fine during the show, and I’m fine right now.”

 

“You’re a fucking liar!”

 

Both Dan and Phil just stared down each other, as that was probably the worse thing Phil’s ever said to  _ anyone _ , let alone Dan. Dan was the one that screamed, that threw tantrums, that sometimes hurled things -- but Phil was collected and had his emotions under the surface where they were under control, or at least,  _ suppressed _ . To see that Dan had the power to unravelling them, was frightening, it hurt them both. Phil wasn’t supposed to care enough to scream at Dan because he wasn’t supposed to  _ care at all _ . 

 

The door suddenly jolted open and Marianne, the assertive and rational woman she was, glared at them both like children in time-out. “Whatever’s going on,  _ fix it. _ ” 

 

Phil scoffed again, only now tearing his eyes from Dan’s to shake his head and pace in a corner of the room where he didn’t have to look at either of them. Dan stood where we was, clutching his chest because the pain in his ribs was overbearing, and (against everything his brain screamed at him) didn’t say anything. 

 

“That was a disaster.” She stated, not judgmentally, but harshly. It was, after all. “I’m surprised angry parents aren’t demanding refunds. You’re lucky your audience is so kind, otherwise -- anyone would’ve seen right past that act.” 

 

They were silent, because neither really had the guts to contradict that. Dan could feel his legs go like jelly, and all the yelling was giving him a headache. He could try and convince the others he could walk straight, breathe easily, and not look like he was about to puke up his lunch and black tulips, but he couldn't be fucked anymore. It hurt him to stand here, exhausted and drained like a dead battery. 

 

Marianne shifted her gaze to Dan, still running his hand over the thin sides of his ribs. He hadn't being paying attention to his weight over the past months, but he knew he’s lost a few kilos. His face and neck that had been full, were now sucken. His thighs and legs that used to be soft, were now boney. He was constantly under the microscopes of the fan’s who pointed out every little deterioration in his appearance. They were fucking diagnosing him, starting hashtags, and all Dan wanted to do was forget it all. This wasn't just the stress of the tour, it was the illness eating at him, and he was kind of fucking terrified. He didn't want to see it every time he went online. “EMTs want to check you over, Dan.”

 

His head shot up so fast, he saw stars. If they examine him, they'd know everything. They'd know he was dying. They’d stop him from doing the last thing he’ll do with Phil. They would know he was in love, and couldn't change anything –  “What? No --”

 

“Just let them, Dan.” Phil snapped, not quite yelling but not exactly quiet either. “Stop being so fucking stubborn. You're not oblivious, you’re still sick, and you're not fucking helping yourself by keeping up this 'I’m fine’ crap!” He’d come closer to Dan, almost like he wanted to grab hold of Dan. He saw the same eyes he saw on the beach that day, grasping onto each other as they fell towards the sand, together. 

 

Phil had a hand raised, not in a threatening way (Phil was mad at him, probably hated him like he should’ve, but he would never do  _ that  _ even though Dan wished he would’ve). His mind seemed in ten million different worlds: one that wanted to keep screaming, one that wanted to hold Dan, one that wanted the truth -- and it just went on and on, so much so that Dan didn’t know how to read him like he always had.

 

A new voice entered. “Phil –” Martyn was now here. How long has he been in the doorway? Could everyone hear this conversation?

 

Dan was pushed up against the vanity, though no one had touched him. It had gotten too much, he was asphyxiating on the inside and the out, and he couldn’t get away from Phil’s glassy, hurtful eyes other than shriveling back into the corner like a coward. 

 

“You're hurting yourself,” Phil said finally, and Dan watched the water gloss over Phil’s eyes, as they were pressed nose-to-nose. Phil could feel the corrupted breaths of Dan’s lungs on his cheek, so he closed his eyes but the tears fell regardless. 

 

Dan stood, unmoving, eyes burning and his throat was closing up -- from emotion or disease, he didn’t know. It was probably a mixture of both. He needed to tell Phil he was sorry, that he knew what was wrong, that he wasn’t okay, that he needed him, and that he had been fucking in love with him for nine years, but --

 

“I’m --”

 

“Phil, let's go.” Martyn said softy, taking his brother by the elbow and leading him out the door, away from the corner he’d shoved Dan into. Phil harshly shrugged him off and was the first to storm away. 

 

Dan didn’t want this. He didn’t want the man he loved repulsing the touch of his brother. He didn’t want to make Phil hurt like this. He didn’t want to fight. What he really wants is to fall asleep. Fall with Phil, and know that he won’t die resented by the love of his life. Perhaps if he fell asleep with Phil, he wouldn’t die at all.  

 

“I’m going to the hotel.” He told Marianne. He expected some speech about getting checked over by the paramedics, but she nodded and called a car.

 

He didn’t see Phil until they left Auckland for Sydney. 

 

* * *

 

The people were pissed, to say the least, once they announced that the first Manilia show would be merged with the second. Phil broke the news, of course, to lessen the impact, while their team worked on damage control, but it was a shit storm for the whole week. 

 

Dan hadn’t been that aware about it, in all honesty. Though it was his show, his performance -- all he knew was that they were moving the shows together, their team was handling it all, and he didn’t have to worry about a thing. Typically, if this happened months ago, he would’ve been on top of it all, juggling it all by himself and working himself into a fucking mental breakdown -- but nowadays, all he thought about every wake of every fucking moment was how he didn’t have the energy to be pissed, or anxious anymore. 

 

He was so close to the end of the tour, he could taste it along with the blood and the petals in his mouth. He knew the traveling/performing being over wouldn’t solve anything, but he wanted to see this through to the end. It wasn’t the end of the beginning for Phil, as his destiny wasn’t tied down to Dan’s. He’ll move on to better and bigger things, do the things that weren’t meant for duos, and conquer the world again and again like Dan knows he can do. 

 

But for Dan, this was the end, period. He started out small, a depressed eighteen-year-old fucking loser in Wokingham, with no one’s company but the shitty, pixelated videos he watched of strangers he idolized and related to. But now he was here, traveling the world, witnessing the empire he had made with his (for lack of a better word, since he couldn’t find the right one that he  _ did  _ believe in) soulmate. He started out a nobody, but he was going out as someone with a world-wide name, one that has aided to help millions, and in his crazy journey of a life, he’d managed to find his soulmate -- that’s more than anyone can say they’ve done in a lifetime. 27 was his lifetime, and looking back at it all, he needed to be okay with that. He was not going to ruin the ending of a twisted fairytale by telling Phil the truth, and die knowing the man he loves cannot return his heart the same way Dan could. 

 

It was 6PM and Dan was choking up the branched, thorns, and black tulips on the bathroom floor, closing his eyes. He could almost imagine being home, with his bed just outside the door, where his smothering blankets were, and where the Phil that didn’t hate him was. 

 

It was so painful he thought he was going to pass out as the branches move their way up his airways and choke him for a few seconds as he heaved to get them out. 

 

This night, he was about the closest he’s ever been to calling for help. From Phil, Manila’s fucking emergency number, or Dr. whatever-her-name was all back in fucking Australia. 

 

_ Fuck this,  _ he wanted to scream, but the plants don’t allow him to talk. They wrapped around his vocal cords, tearing his larynx apart, clotting his airways, and spreading like a poisonous wild bush on the insides of his lungs. 

 

The lights flicked on, burning his eyes, so he stuck his head into the bowl since he didn’t want whoever it was to see all the tulips and blood around his face. He can blame it on food poisoning if he has to, but be couldn’t let them see the truth. 

 

“Oh, my God!” The voice is high-pitch, really squeaky and  _ shut up shut up shut up.  _ The headache was already hammering his skull across the four walls, this was only amplifying it. It seared into his neck, down to his spine and made him want to pull all his hair out, rip his scalpe off and throw his brain down the toilet. “Dan, are you okay?!”

 

“...Sick,” he replied with his head still bowed disgustingly low in the bowl. He vomited again, gripping the sides and trying hold the flowers back, because he  _ needed  _ to feel like he was in control of this, but in reality, he was powerless.

 

“Is that--!?” The voice gasped, and he possessed enough adrenaline to press down on the flush, and snapped his head back to them. 

 

“No --” He said a little to forcefully, as the next thing he knew, his stomach didn’t appreciate the sudden movement. He was being sick all over himself, blood and tulips and all. 

 

“ _ Skit _ ,” Cornelia swore, along with some other valgur Swedish words that Dan didn’t understand. “What the --?!”

 

She rushed over to him like he was dying. He was certain we was. 

 

“What the fuck is happening?!” Her eyes peered into him. The shower was suddenly cascading down, and Cornelia was helping him stand underneath it, still fully clothed. 

 

“I’m…” Dan gasped as the branches moved and tore apart his lungs. It hurt so badly, he wanted to die at this point. “I’m in love with Phil.”

 

Cornelia’s grip that kept him anchored released. Her finger her ice against his skin, he melted into her cold touch feverishly. “I-- I know, love.” She told him gently. “But why--”

 

“Because! Because he ruined me! In the best fucking way possible, Phil ruined me! He saved me!” Dan weeped, voice rising above with panic and desperation. 

 

The words suddenly came streaming out of his throat, like colorful paints running down a beautifully ruined canvas. “I was alone, and talking to him, seeing him and being with him made me not want to die! My life was fucking shit, and he was this  _ focal point _ that blurred out all the darkness and made me realise -- and for the first time I saw…” he was hyperventilating. “I saw what the rest of my life could look like!”

 

“Dan, that’s not --”

 

“I didn’t know someone could be so important to me that it made me want spend the rest of my life with them! It’s so fucking scary -- so fucking  _ real _ ! But -- but it’s more than that. It’s everything! It’s every-fucking-thing that makes leaving him so much worse! He -- He lied with me when I couldn’t get off the fucking floor, and fed me when I couldn’t eat, and his eyes are three fucking colours!” Dan sobbed, and the flowers held back in his chest. 

 

“Dan--”

 

“But it’s not like I’m this codependent flatmate, one that needed rescuing all the time, okay!? I’ve help him too! We’ve save each other! The times he couldn’t talk for himself, I said the words for him! The night he had a breakdown over the tour, I held him for hours, even though it killed me! And sometimes, he looks at me the way I look at him! It’s this  _ look  _ that screams, ‘I need you. I  _ need  _ you in my life’! It’s like we don’t know how we’d live without the other, like we  _ couldn’t _ ! On the beach--” Dan was cut off by the pressure building up against his rib cage, and the fuzziness in his eyes that was brought on by a mixture of white agony and tears. “It’s not fair!” He gasped, choking on sobs and the pain. “I don’t want to leave him!”

 

“Dan, hey, breathe, okay?” Her voice was barely sticking to Dan’s reality.

 

“I don’t want to leave!” Dan cried, collapsing into her arms as they stood fully clothed under the lukewarm shower. This wasn’t right, the whole world was wrong, Dan decided. Dan Howell loved Phil Lester and was being punished into oblivion because of it. His destiny was being controlled for him, and everything that he didn’t think was possible was real. Flowers were guns, lungs were knives, and Phil held the weapons in his shaking hands, while Dan was the one to twist the silver blade and pull the trigger.

 

“Love, I’m going to get Phil. He needs to –“ 

 

“No!” Dan shouted, horse and gritty as of his voice had been dragged against gravel. “You can’t! You can’t let him know this – know about  _ me _ ! This isn’t supposed to end like that!” 

 

Cornelia had a horrified look on her face. “End? Dan, what the hell is going on? Those flowers –“

 

“It doesn’t matter.” Dan snapped, feeling only the slightest bit of guilt at her hurt face. For all she knew, she might’ve thought Dan was dying. It would hurt all of them less to know that fact that he actually was. “You just can’t tell Phil,  _ please _ .”

 

“He needs to know, and you need to tell him.” 

 

“Like hell he does! If I tell him, I’ll –...“  _ die with him hating me, even more so. _ Dan shook his head, feeling so tired that his body would collapse. It was a good thing they didn’t have a show today. “God, I don’t even know why I told you all that shit.” He muttered, screwing his eyes closed.

 

“You told me because it’s killing you.” Cornelia said with a knowing, sombre smile that reminded him of a beautiful rose inside a thrashing hurricane. He’s so fucking done with these endless juxtapositions, because nothing about this was ever poetically depressing, or beautifully dystopian. It just was sad, and fucked up, and his unrequited love for Phil Lester was his own twisted tragedy. “Dan Howell, you stupid, romantic,  _ horunge.” _

 

“Excuse me?” Not really the reaction he was expecting, Dan side-eyed Cornelia, not really having the effort to defend himself against that insult.

 

“ _ Pucko _ , Phil has been in love with you since he met you!” 

 

Dan staggered out of the shower, dripping wet into the bedroom and turned away from Cornelia once he sat himself on the bed. “Get out,”

 

The illusion of hope or salvation from death’s arms into Phil’s wasn’t something he allowed himself to think about. It hurt as much as the petals did, so he vowed to himself since the day on Australia’s beach, he wouldn’t think about what he couldn’t have. Fuck Cornelia for spitting lies, and fuck Dan for wanted to believe her against everything in his better judgment.  _ Love does that, _ the mocking sing-song voice in his head laughed, and Dan wanted to smother it silent.

 

“Tell him.” Cornelia said as she left reluctantly. Whatever this conversation had been, it was the closest to a fight either of them had had. For better or for worse, Dan sickly liked it that way. He’d had a full on screaming match with Phil in New Zealand, and now whatever this was with Cornelia – and though it hurt to push the people he loved away, it would be better in the end. They’d hurt less when he died, it was the least he could do to clean up his mess on Earth before the deities he didn’t believe in banished him to heaven or hell or purgatory or nothingness: whatever he deserved. 

 

* * *

 

India was perhaps the worst. 

 

Mumbai’s moonlight poured into the too empty hotel room like watercolors on parchment paper, and Dan was drowning in the art.

 

He’d woken up at 4AM, covered in his own blood and vomit and flowers, and the room felt fifty degrees hot.

 

_ This was where it began  _ – he didn’t let himself think.

 

There were about a million places and beginnings for the chaotic unreturned love story of Dan and Phil, and this was just another one of them. They had the radiant city of Manchester were Dan learned to paint over his grey, ashen world with Phil showing him how, and they had Brisbane where the sea could almost wash away Dan’s drownings of another sort, Phil lying beside him; and then they had Mumbai. Or half of it, at least. Worlds apart, but underneath the same sky, feeling as if 2010 Manchester and Mumbai were one sensation, one moment and focal point shared by two. For one minuscule moment, in a place where Manchester and Mumbai were connected, Phil loved Dan. And Dan still loved Phil.

 

“Dan? Dan?!” The voice in the hall called out, but he was too busy stifling the choked sounds of coughing and spurting all over his nice white hotel duvet cover to care to respond. 

 

Phil was his undoing, forever and always. Forever will be, which was why he couldn’t answer the door.

 

He shouldn’t be outside his room at 4AM, he shouldn’t be yelling out to Dan as if this were 2010’s past, and it wasn’t fair to Dan that this man was the reason his bedspread was covered in putrid red blood and monochrome tulips. 

 

“Dan, I can hear you from next door. Are you okay? Can you please open the door.”

 

He needed to get away from Phil because the past died a long time ago, and none of this was fair. 

 

Sometimes, to keep him sane at night, he thought about Phil’s eyes that were three different colours – and now petals got caught in his throat. He thought what it would be like to kiss him, or run his hands down his face, or what the afterglow would feel like – and a branch caved in his chest. He thought about a future that he promised he wouldn’t dare think about with this person that he’s been with for ten years, and in consequence, he saw a world he would never have with the love of his life. The universe taunted him with his sad fantasies and made blood poured down his chin, his jaw, over his lips and onto the white sheets.

 

He’s torturing himself or the world was torturing him. Either way, because of it, this is all ending where it started.

 

“Go – A-Away!” Dan choked out, clutching his chest and shaking as he willed every amount of strength he had not to throw up all over the bed. Phil would break the door down if he heard that.

 

“Shit, Dan. Do you need to go to the hospital or something?”

 

“No!” Dan muttered, his voice seeping pain and hurt – more than just a physical level at this point, because Phil was right outside the door. He needed that man to come inside, rock him back and forth, and he could cry into Phil’s arms – but that’s not what they were, and they would never be that. Dan knew that, but the past didn’t, and Dan couldn’t no longer tell them apart. 

 

“Can you just open the door?” He heard Phil turn the knob, multiple times, even bang on the door like he had no regard for the other guests. “Dan!”

 

“Fuck, wait!” Dan slouched over, breathing in what seemed to be fire. His lungs made a high whistling sound. Dan scrunched his eyes, pressing a hand to his rib cage to rid the presser in his lungs, stopping the dreadful sound of his airways giving up. 

 

He didn’t want to move, but he did for Phil – and though he wanted nothing more than to open the door just to slam it in his face for making Dan fall in love with him, he also craved to see his eyes, his thoughts, his home the way people crave for air. 

 

Part of him knew the more he was around Phil, and the more he thought about him –  the more it hurt, and the more he died a little each time. But, suddenly, he saw it as dying either way, if he was to do the opposite, so it didn’t really matter. He could go to the hospital tonight, get the fucking black tulips removed from his lungs and forget about his non-existent love for Phil Lester. 

 

Or, he could die – and die in love. Love that was unrequited, and love that was killing him, and love that was ten years expired, but love for the most important soul in his life, nonetheless. He wasn’t even sure he could live without loving Phil Lester, so this conclusion to things would have been inevitable. He was made to die in the end, but he was also made to love his best friend. There were no other pathways in this twisted fate. He had fallen, and flying wasn’t possible. Or, maybe it was -- but not for Dan Howell.

 

When he opened the door, his life was no longer his own to dictate, but he simply didn’t care anymore. He just wanted Phil, he wanted to collide where Manchester met Mumbai, so he silently told he universe,  _ ‘so be it’ _ .

 

Dan shuffled to the door, leaning a hand against the frame, as the other was gripping at his own shirt fabric. 

 

He edged the door open, almost afraid like Phil could see right through him. Maybe Phil saw that he was the one killing Dan, or just the fact that his boy was completely in love with him, Dan didn’t know. But for some inexplicable reason, Phil Lester had this arms around Dan Howell, like the kind of thing that happened in movies.

 

Phil’s fingers were clawing at his shirt, his face buried into Dan’s neck, and God, Phil smelled like  _ warm _ . He could still feel the branches push into his sides, and fuck, something inside his lungs was giving way. 

 

Though the rare form of black tulips were beautiful -- matched his life and his soul like nothing else had -- they were suffocating him. He couldn’t breathe. 

 

_ Phil _ .  _ Phil! Phil –  _

 

“Dan?” 

 

Dan had been clutching to the other boy as if he was a lifeline. His eyes were searching and desperate, not daring to take his sight away from Phil’s own as he pulled them apart. Phil’s hands stayed fused to Dan’s body, though his mind was lost within the chaos of the room. It was as if someone had been slaughtered in the sheets, and flowers had been laid at their deathbed: chaotic in a beautiful kind of way, symbolic to Dan Howell and his everything. 

 

_ Them _ . 

 

Phil understood. 

 

“ _ Dan _ \--” 

 

“I’m in lo --”

 

The two had collapsed against the hotel room floor, Dan not having the strength to hold himself up anymore, and subsequently brought down Phil, who was latching onto him, down too. A broken, heavenly mess on the floor, Phil was crying. 

 

“I’m in love with you,” Dan murmured, the blood in his throat making a strange gurgling sound, and the whistle in his airways was heard when is tired to breathe in. 

 

“You too, Dan.” Phil whispered, their foreheads grazing against each others. Phil saw Dan’s eyes and though they widened in pain and returned love, he was content. He, for the first time in ten years, was fulfilled. “I’m in love with you, too. God -- I’m so in love with you, Daniel Howell.”

 

Dan smiled sadly, brushed his fingers through Phil’s hair. “I just wanted to tell you that.”

 

Phil closed his eyes, the droplets fell down his checks and onto Dan’s face. Neither cared. “I-I should’ve… I should’ve told you. And this wouldn’t’ve h-happened. And y-you would be okay. You wouldn’t’ve had to d --”

 

Maybe they were doomed from the start. Maybe Phil Lester was Dan’s downfall. Maybe Dan loved it that way.

 

“I’m perfect,”

 

Maybe the universe can go fuck itself. 

 

Phil looked back at Dan’s face. He was fading, but he looked serene. He did look perfect, and Phil would always think that he was. 

 

“I’m killing you. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.” He whispered. 

 

“So let’s change it.” Dan murmured back, an even softer voice than Phil’s. The atmosphere held their bodies and theirs only. They were the only two people in the universe. 

 

_ Them. _

 

Dan’s lips collided with Phil’s, at first gently, and then all at once. Phil tasted like the colour blue. Like the pouring moonlight, like the running watercolours, like 2010 and before that and beyond – and like the one thing missing in Dan’s world that made everything else fall together. 

 

Dan breathed.   
  



End file.
